


Feelings (Or Something Like Them)

by rvst



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-05-24 03:13:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 15,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6139400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvst/pseuds/rvst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An on-going series of drabbles for all your OT3 needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Successful

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Captain Aspergers Writes Feelings.
> 
> This can only end well.
> 
> Continuing from the end of the last collection.

The plan was perfect.

As perfect as a plan could be when your help was a pair of incompetent pickpockets who were constantly distracted by their fearless leader’s every inch of exposed skin.

In theory, the plan was amazing and was not going to fail because pulling it off was insane with only three people.

“What the fuck is moved by damn train anymore?”

Danny groaned internally and resumed her throwing knife practice, ignoring Laura and her foul mouth easily. She wasn’t telling either of them what they were after until it was absolutely necessary. They’d question the value of the haul. They were two-bit criminals. Danny didn’t want them backing out now.

“Coal, maybe?”

The other idiot was lounging on Danny’s nice leather couch while Laura fucked around with something in her expensively put together kitchen. This job was going to send her broke in replacement appliances and a new ten thousand dollar couch. But they were good and they were small.

The security on the train presumed the people assaulting it would be big men with some kind of military training. That was what the massive armed guards were there to force: a specific kind of criminal.

Danny’s cutout targets were all bigger than her and much broader. She’d spent weeks learning where exactly to hit to take them down without killing them.

“Are we seriously not questioning this?” Laura asked Carmilla in what she had to think was quietly enough for Danny to not hear her. “Scary rich lady wants us to help her rob a train? You see nothing wrong about this situation?”

Carmilla might have purred. She had a better grasp of being quiet than Laura. Danny didn’t know why she brought them into her apartment. Their tiny, dark, sparse bolt holes tugged at the protective instincts Danny worked alone to ignore.

“We’re suckers for a pretty lady?” Carmilla drawled, absolutely aware that Danny could hear everything they were saying. Because the woman had a target for incapacitating an armed guard set up in her bedroom, it was safe to assume that she had excellent hearing. “Were you doing anything better with your time?”

Danny threw her last knife and put her hands on her hips, criticising her own throws.

“You plan on killing us when we’re done, Stretch?”

Danny sighed, this was a bad idea. They were cute though, and that was enough to buy herself a moment of time to take out the threat.

The open plan of the apartment let most of the sunlight from outside. When the sun went down, they would leave.

“If I am, you should both make your peace now,” she pointedly didn’t answer. The pair of them were sitting on either side of the couch, it wasn’t exactly small. Danny got their undivided attentions immediately, causing an internal burst of something in her chest. “We leave in an hour, your lock picking sets are in the car, I hope you’re both prepared for this.”

They thought she was insane, collectively and somehow visibly.

“You want us to rob a train with three day’s worth of notice?” Laura was stunned, so Carmilla spoke for them both. “For what and which part of the job can’t you do on your own?”

Laura nodded along silently.

Danny considered lying. It would make life easier and she could remove them from the occasion if they didn’t react well to being bait with talented fingers. Swapping out their respective wallets wasn’t an easy feat. They both showed some awareness that she’d gotten to them, but neither questioned the lift.

“You’re a distraction,” she explained, causing more looking like she was insane, “and while I am amazing all-around, your collective speed and skill at getting into heavier locks is more than a match for my own.”

“A distraction for what?” Laura found her voice.

“The guards for whatever amazing haul is moved by a fucking train, obviously,” Carmilla chimed in.

“It’s worth a lot to the right people,” Danny didn’t explain. Laura was on her though.

“That means ‘don’t try to double-cross me because it’s worthless to you’, Grumbles,” Laura said while she slouched further down the couch. 

“Super high end, mostly one of a kind watches and accessories that have a massive resale value because the only thing better than buying one legit is showing up at the country club with a supposedly stolen version.”

They stared at her, Carmilla’s attention flicking between the expensive couch and the silly high-tech fridge.

“They send that crap by train?”


	2. Bad

The Mayor had Carmilla’s left arm in his hands while the Head Priest held the other. They were dragging her down to the river in a dress Mother would have loved her to get married in. The pristine white cloth was stained red in streaks of her own blood dripping from her nose and split lip.

The blood made her feel faint, not from squeamishness, but from the violence it came from. She hadn’t been struck since she could barely talk properly and to have a grown man club her across the face with his meaty hand.

The Mayor’s hold was much stronger than the clergyman’s. Were she to survive the day, she would have bruising all up and down her arm.

“I’m sure your mother is to blame for this, child,” the man of the gods muttered, as if that comforted her any. “You are the poisoned fruit of her womb.”

Carmilla stared at him like he had lost it, “I’m adopted, you idiot.”

The Mayor yanked on her arm so hard she yelped at the pain in her shoulder. The clergyman frowned.

“Pat, there’s no need for cruelty,” he admonished the Mayor.

“I’ll hold you responsible if my daughter isn’t found by nightfall,” the Mayor growled in return, leaving no room for argument. “The river runs strong today, two to feed it won’t hurt.”

The clergyman’s grip loosened briefly before matching the Mayor’s intensity.

Fantastic.

Carmilla spent her entire life walking on eggshells around Mother and Mayor and one step out of line left her alone and about to die. Swimming wasn’t something they did ever and the river ran deep and fast. Her heart hurt from beating at top speed for the last hour. First in the woods with Laura and then being forced into her lovely dress and marched to the water.

“If she has so much as a mark on her, I will drag you out of that river and beat you to death with my bare hands, witch child,” hissed the Mayor, bending over to her height so no one else heard him speak. The town was coming out to see what the commotion was about. “Stay back!”

The people obeyed their Mayor quickly and silently.

The river came into view, rushing and wide.

“Hopefully this will purge the town of your Mother too,” the clergyman spat, a sudden darkness taking over him. Mother had that effect on people.

The Mayor used his superior grip to fling her forward until she stumbled to her knees at the edge of the river. Carmilla stared at it, her stomach dropping and her lungs burning.

The men advanced on her, intent on throwing her in to the rushing waters to drown for Mother’s sins or whatever charge they would give the town.

A dull thud followed by a gurgle and a thump preceded the Mayor’s unmoving body falling to one side of Carmilla as the clergyman fell to his knees praying next to her.

“What if you missed?”

Carmilla recognised that voice, practically screeching now. She turned to see her accomplice in her little crime standing next to a woman holding a loaded crossbow aimed directly at the clergyman.

“Did I miss?”

“Well, no,” Laura admitted, folding her arms across her chest and looking anywhere but at Carmilla. “He’s a big guy, it might not have killed him.”

“Oh, Cupcake, he’s gone,” Carmilla interjected as she got to her feet. “Who’s tall, red, and armed?”

Laura stuttered and spluttered while looking for her words.

“Other girlfriend,” the redheaded woman replied in Laura’s place. “You’d be the witch lady’s kid?”

Carmilla nodded while Laura flushed brilliantly red.

“Thanks,” she breathed, locking eyes with the woman. Laura smirked even in her embarrassment. “We should run now.”

Laura scoffed, the other woman motioned for the clergyman to approach her, and Carmilla reached to pull the nice murderer’s axe from the Mayor’s back.

“I see no reason to run,” Laura began, eyeing the clergyman like he was prey. “I believe the town charter says leadership powers pass to the closest living relative in such a tragic case, correct?”

The clergyman shook all over, but eventually made a squeak that sounded like an affirmative.

“Excellent. Danny?” The redhead nodded her thanks to Carmilla as she handed over the axe. “Go clean that off and then we’ll get him in the river. I’ve heard it’s hungry today.”

Carmilla absolutely did not find power hungry Laura attractive, not at all.

“And me, dear one?”

“How attached are we to Mother dearest?”


	3. Angry

The ropes were burning Danny’s hands through her gloves. The storm was small but ferocious. The captain was greener than the woman who couldn’t keep her lunch down for the first hour of the trip. Land was in sight before the storm descended upon them. The captain decided they could make it to shore before it hit at their cruising speed rather than waste fuel on gunning it to make sure they were okay.

Thus the ropes and the burning. Keeping them from stopping and swiftly becoming dead was a job Danny needed a lot more help than she had doing. The small ship was going down, the pessimistic part of her brain chimed in, ever helpful.

Below deck, fifteen passengers were either cowering like it was the end of the world or lazing around like the storm couldn’t possibly touch them. There was very little variation in how these people reacted in Danny’s experience.

Lightning crashed somewhere near their comparatively tiny boat, startling Danny out of her focus on pulling the ropes. The flashing in the sky lit the woman leaning over the railing on the upper deck. Danny forgot about her work, there was little that she could do to change their fate at this point. A passenger going to get herself killed early. That Danny could stop.

Hopefully.

Her brand new shoes slid worryingly as she dashed up the stairs. The woman was slight, frail, and according to her mother, was risking certain death by even being out in the rain. That did nothing for Danny’s worry.

“Ma’am?”

The woman jumped, losing her footing with her alarm. Danny surged forward and caught the falling woman by trapping her body between Danny’s larger form and the railing.

“Are you okay?” Danny tried when her heart calmed down and stopped beating against her throat. The woman didn’t register that she was done falling, her hands grabbing at Danny’s heavy jacket like it was keeping her alive. “Ma’am?”

“Yes, I’m,” she paused to look up into Danny’s eyes as another flash of lightning struck the sea. “I’ll be fine.”

“There’s a storm,” Danny said plainly, kicking herself internally. Perhaps working for seventeen months straight wasn’t the best for her social skills. “Which you already noticed.”

The woman wasn’t letting go. “You’re alone, why?”

“You’re the one standing out in a freaking storm when the captain was very clear that everyone should be below deck and in their rooms,” Danny argued immediately, taking the words to be an insult. “Making sure we stay afloat is my job.”

Better. Much better.

“Are you secretly Thor?”

The alluring smirk sent shivers down Danny’s spine. “No, but you need to be downstairs and now, ma’am.”

“Carmilla, ‘ma’am’ is my Mother. Who is already passed out drunk and currently being relieved of her every last bit of jewellery and the criminal amount of cash she brought with her.”

Danny blinked, registered that she was still effectively pinning the woman, Carmilla, to the railings. She didn’t move.

“That’s all of it. How’s the-?”

Danny spun around as another flash of lightning lit up everything. All three women on deck ducked to the ground instinctively.

“No?”

“No, Laura!”

Cunning thieves, Danny grumbled internally. It took three seconds to decide which side of the robbery she wanted to be on and develop a plan for taking down the enemy.

“You are aware that this is the worst possible time to be running away from home,” Danny hissed. She held out her hand for the bag the new woman was dragging behind her slowly. The bags on each of her shoulders let her give it up without thinking. Danny slung it over her shoulder and nodded at the crew area entrance and tossed Laura her keys. “Go to my bunk, I’ll take over the ship and we’ll maroon them somewhere out to sea.”

“More willing than expected,” Carmilla noted, her hands curling in a death grip around the railing as the ship pitched to one side. Danny mostly tackled Laura when it looked like she was going to lose her feet.

“Like you weren’t out here getting my attention!” Danny yelled and pushed them both to go to the crew area.

“And your name is?”

Danny stared at them, long and hard until they cracked and scurried away. There was no way they didn’t know who she was.

“One mutiny coming up,” she muttered to herself as she ascended to where the captain was relaxing.

Getting off this ship was worth the risk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Started writing a new fandom in my break time from Carmilla. One day I will write for a fandom that doesn't require nine new terms being added to all of my writing program's dictionaries.


	4. Confident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original Pokemon games re-released.

A full hour of battling and all they’d achieved was a scorched room with dents in it.

“Aren’t you lot supposed to get harder?” Laura panted out, sitting on her raised platform and glaring at her opponent. The woman was perfectly at home in the heat and exertion, a fact that had Laura grumbling to herself underneath her breath. The other three weren’t this particular about their battle environments, why was the fourth so insistent on playing to type. Literally.

“Did you have a harder time with my colleagues?” Laura was going to brave the tightrope walk along the girders suspended over the open flames to strangle this woman. Elite Four Unofficial Leader or not. “They’re trying their best, perhaps you came better prepared for them?”

Laura struggled to her feet to meet the easygoing gaze of her final defeated opponent in this region. How dare she have grown accustomed to her working environment! “I do not appreciate the sudden difficulty spike going on here. The three of them were cakewalks and basically everyone I have with me is knocked out after you,” she shouted, knowing perfectly well that there was some kind of sound system employed to keep challengers from losing their voices screaming across the crackling of the fire.

The fire that served as the floor.

The water-type member of the Elite Four has some nice, vaguely threatening, waterfalls and this woman decided that she wanted the floor made out of fire. Laura decided all four of them were being melodramatic about their jobs.

“I’ve been beaten twice in one month, do you know how bad that looks on my record?”

Laura decided that all the weeks of research she had done on Danny Lawrence and the other three weren’t in vain. Defeating the first three like they weren’t even there had her sailing on a cloud when she floated into the inferno to come within a moment of losing to the supposed dumb brute of the group. Laura officially had a lot to say on the online forums frequented by trainers the world over, namely that ‘dumb’ wasn’t even close.

“Wait, twice?”

Danny Lawrence hit a button on a little black remote and the floor stopped being on fire. Laura took this as an opportunity to administer her plentiful Revives to her worn-out party. They were not going to be happy about the near-loss.

“Some girl clearly angling to take Morgan’s place at her Gym came in here and swept all of us away like we weren’t even here,” she explained while some kind of stone flooring rose to fit perfectly in the gaps left by the girder grid. Danny wandered her way over after putting her spent team in a box to be healed before the next challenger arrived. “Gotta stay Champion for at least a month to qualify for a position and there’s no way that team you have there beats her.”

“A dark-type specialist got through you?” Laura was floored. Danny’s team nearly beat her own based on that particular mismatch on its own. “Were you drunk?”

Danny wandered her way over the stone bridge that was remarkably not burning through her adorably casual sneakers and leaned on the stone railing of Laura’s trainer cage thing.

“No, she genuinely beat the crap out of me. Didn’t even break a sweat.” Danny offered a hand to Laura who was drowning in her own sweat. Hopping over the stone fence was much easier with help. Laura raised her eyebrows dubiously. “I know, freaked me the fuck out too.”

“It’s a hotbox in here. I thought you were a weird yoga nut when I walked in,” Laura ranted, making her way back out of the final room of the Elite Four’s chambers. “Where is Princess Darkness?”

Danny held the heavy metal doors open for her, lazily making her way toward the Champion’s Hall. Laura followed, wondering if the yoga comment had offended her.

“She’s through there, good luck. You are going to need it,” Danny offered, untying her hair and re-braiding it ready for the next challenger. “If you need any advice or help, don’t hesitate.”

Laura took the copper red card out of Danny’s hand and heard the familiar register of a new contact from her All-In-One Pokédex. She wondered if she was the first person to ever get a potential date out of a high-level battle. Without trying. While sweating through her clothes.

“Kick her ass for me?”

Laura smirked and powered through the big black doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess what I've been doing with my break from writing?


	5. Sleepy

“You’re being childish about this, Laura,” Danny shouted from the bathroom where she was getting her hair into the tight braid her harsh working conditions required. “So you’re only a brilliant trainer who defeated the Elite Four, that’s a lot more than most people get to be.”

“Do I have to go through all of you again?” Laura called back, pouting even though her sort-of girlfriend couldn’t see her. “That’s going to take all damn day.”

Danny emerged from the bathroom in her uniform, ready to face another day of squashing the dreams of mediocre trainers who thought they were good enough for the Elite Four. The black tank-top with the glimmering outline of a flame on the front and her ripped skinny jeans made Laura remember why exactly she’d called the closest match of her life a success even beyond the achievement of facing the Champion. Danny Lawrence’s promotional pictures did not do her justice.

“Them’s the rules, Hollis. Five battles consecutively when we have a sitting Champion, four if not,” Danny explained for the fourth time that week. Laura’s initial four-stage beat down of the Elite Four was three weeks ago and she was anxious to have another attempt at making it a five-stage beat down. “Madame Darkness isn’t allowed to change anything about her team so take the time to plan better this attempt.”

Laura considered getting out of bed. Her mind was still a haze of lost dreams that she refused to admit were about the current Champion of the Styrian Region. Going back to sleep in a bed not her own seemed like a much easier option for her day. Danny was clearly used to staying up most of the night and still getting up bright and early. Laura was tired down to her bones, so much so that she was beginning to suspect that Danny was preventing her from having another run at the Elite Four and the Dark Pain In Her Neck by finding new, increasingly physical dates to ensure Laura woke too late in the day to start challenging them.

“Are you trying to keep me from beating you again?” Laura fell back onto the gloriousness that was Danny’s bed. The Elite Four made ridiculous money and Danny spent every bit of it on making her penthouse apartment the single most comfortable home Laura could possibly imagine. “Because you can come right out and admit it, I won’t judge.”

“You do realise I’m allowed to change my team upon any re-battles, right?” Danny challenged. Laura stared as she knelt on the bed, crawling her way up Laura’s body until they were face to face. Danny stole a kiss and smirked at Laura’s lazy smile. “You’ve got a storm coming, gorgeous.”

Laura needed to re-think her battle plan, immediately. Danny getting distracted and tugging at the impossibly soft sheets Laura was covered with was not helping matters. “You have work, don’t start stuff you can’t finish.”

Danny ignored her, “I have time and no one ever challenges me first.”

Squirming under Danny’s attention, Laura couldn’t think straight. Her arguments came out as moans and she was suddenly awake and alert.

“We could always let her stay for the month, become eligible for a Gym Leadership, and get Morgan off her throne of darkness,” Danny continued their discussion as if she wasn’t fully dressed and taking Laura apart. “Carmilla’s not the most amicable person, but she’s a thousand times better than Morgan.”

Grabbing Danny’s jaw and forcing her to make eye contact, Laura raised her eyebrows at the familiarity. “’Carmilla’? When did we get so friendly?”

“I like powerful women, sue me,” Danny answered succinctly. This threw Laura’s last three weeks into new context. Alarming context.

“How the hell are you keeping pace with both of us?” Laura had to know, Danny was with her most nights and sleep was only on the menu as a last resort. Danny immediately got distracted again, still not helping. “Does she bite? She looks like a biter.”

Danny rolled her eyes on her way down Laura’s stomach. “Yes, I’m shocked you didn’t notice.”

Laura was hit with a memory of a set of teeth marking Danny’s skin that she eventually decided must have been her own. The last three weeks were an exhausted mess in her mind. “I thought they were mine.”

Danny stopped to lean her forehead against Laura’s abs, her body shaking with laughter.

“Shut up, Lawrence!”

The Elite Four were not challenged that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depression sucks guys.


	6. Surprised

Danny Lawrence used the same breed on her three times in a row.

If it was anything other than a specially raised Arcanine and two of his younger siblings, Laura would have been fine. However, Danny’s overgrown mutts were fast. Stupidly fast. Laura was deep into convincing herself that she wasn’t well on her way to becoming a fighting-type specialist and thus her team wasn’t winning any races any time soon.

“You suck so bad right now,” the asshole crowed from across the chamber. Laura folded her arms and frowned at the sudden loss.

“I thought she performed admirably,” came a painfully familiar voice from Danny’s side of the battle area. “All things considered.”

The flames were snuffed out and the heat-resistant floor rose to give Laura a fantastic view of Danny’s smug bastard Arcanine prancing around like an idiot. The Styrian Champion tossed something down as it rose, revealing her vicious Houndoom butting heads with the Arcanine amicably.

“One more week and I’m all you’ll have to get through to be Champion,” Danny cut in brightly before Carmilla had a real chance to speak. Laura was at once both grateful and annoyed. “Morgan’s agreed to a fight for the Gym.”

“Mother and I are having a difference in opinion,” the Champion herself trailed her hand across Danny’s hips and elegantly hopped over the rails and landed just as the floor stopped moving. “She says she’s the best, I say she’s gone nuts in her old age. Terrible mess.”

Laura was itching to vault over her own barrier and scratch her stupid eyes out for stopping her from following through on her trouncing of the Elite Four. However, smug bastard Danny with her smug adorable bastard Arcanine would like that and Laura wasn’t giving her the satisfaction.

“Does that mean I have one week to figure out how to smash you into the ground?” Laura actively sought to provoke a fight. Papa Hollis told her that choosing a baby Machop as her very first Pokèmon would only lead in one direction. Laura was fine with proving him right. She was five at the time of choosing and had already developed her strong stubborn streak. “Once I’m done yelling at her for going easy on me the first time around, you are next, Madame!”

“Never call anyone who isn’t elderly that again, please,” Danny chimed in, “just, no, Hollis.”

“It’s the leather pants, isn’t it?”

“I like them,” Danny announced while moving energetically to play with the two Pokèmon dancing around each other. Despite the ungodly heat still lingering in the room. The longer Laura spent with the woman, the easier it was to understand her ability to keep up with seeing Laura and Carmilla at the same time. “They’re cute!”

Carmilla’s annoying eyes closed and she pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “She had better be talking about the mutts,” she growled low enough that her Houndoom perked up his ears to check on his trainer briefly.

“No, she thinks the whole ‘dark and broody’ act is cute,” Laura supplied helpfully. Danny glared at her and visibly stopped herself from arguing the point.

The current Champion sighed, crossing her arms over her body in a move that piqued Laura’s interest. Danny’s too, but Laura didn’t notice.

“Oh, I know she does. She is infuriating and insufferable and optimistic and downright happy to be beaten twice in a month,” Carmilla began to pace, like she was alone and having this little chat with her floor-length mirrors, “who the fuck finds leather pants cute?”

“She the fuck does?” Laura answered, confused. “Is that a bad thing?”

Danny resumed play time, pretending to ignore them both.

“Mother claims that cute is for children and pets,” Carmilla attempted to explain herself. Laura didn’t want to know, any details about this woman were sure to douse her eye-ripping-out intentions. If Carmilla stayed an unknown entity, she was faceless and therefore easy to dislike. Then again, her own mother was saying stuff like that to her. Laura felt herself square her shoulders and prepare for idealistic warfare.

“Are we coming with you to kick the stuffing out of Madame Morgan?”

“Good use of ‘Madame’!” Danny wasn’t listening, really.

“You can’t help, why would you come?” Carmilla seemed genuinely confused to Laura. There went Laura’s hackles as a-raising. Someone stop her.

“If she tried, Danny could potentially be threatening,” was all Laura had.

Carmilla smiled, genuinely. “Sure, Cupcake.”


	7. Fearful

Zombies weren’t new.

Laura grew up around them, killing them when she was a child. Unlike the elderly members of their community, Laura could perfectly tell the difference between zombie and human. She considered them to be two different species. If someone was infected and turned, Laura didn’t hesitate like they did. There was a fundamental difference between friend and foe and she was the eldest young person able to recognise this and win a fight.

That was how she ended up essentially the border patrol for a cave-based society her father went to after he was bitten. Laura was seven and pinpointed the exact moment her father stopped being her father. The healers present sent for a guard and that guard decided that Laura would be best placed in the hands of the militia.

When the woman showed up, tall, red hair, weirdly well put together, Laura was twenty-one and in charge of weird women showing up. Also the men, and the children. Weird children were the worst and Laura was constantly having to restrain her urges to send them to the burning fires dotting the caves.

Laura categorised the world into human and zombie and this woman was oddly neither.

“What are you?” Laura called down. The local militia types had no time for tact. Especially when there was a potential threat.

“What?”

Laura’s left hand went to her gun rather than arrows for the bow already gripped in her right hand. Protocol dictated that unknowns warranted any extreme force necessary. Especially after the incident with the liquid metals and a pair of curious kids.

“What are you?” Laura repeated, watching the other woman with practised attention. No movements towards weapons, didn’t move forward or backward. Wasn’t going to charge or run. More odd.

“I heard you,” she got in response, “I want to know why you said ‘what’ not ‘who’.”

Totally a threat, Laura thought. She placed her bow on the strong leather hook attached to her belt and brought the handgun forward. Trained at centre mass, Laura was certain she could put the woman down before she got through the gate. Then she checked that certainty. Certain people tended to end up dead fast in Laura’s world.

“No need for that,” the woman raised her hands up in surrender. There wasn’t fear in the action. Laura changed her aim to track higher It was harder to do, but blowing an unknown into death generally meant removing the head. “Will not help and you’ll have wasted a bullet or two.”

Laura believed her and lowered the gun. She was good at lost causes too. The mercy killing of people infected was entirely her responsibility. Laura volunteered.

“What are you?” Laura asked again, her shoulders lowering in defeat. “Not human, not rot-monster.”

“World War Two veteran?”

“That is not a species,” Laura deadpanned. The woman wasn’t pressing the advantage her private power gave her, so Laura was happy to let her talk while her team got the bigger guns and explosives ready. The lowering of a weapon without the all-clear automatically meant something was wrong and something drastic had to happen.

The woman tilted her head like she was straining to hear something. Laura’s blood froze when one of her people dropped something metal and the woman reacted as if it was next to her ears. “Don’t. You are only going to hurt yourselves and waste resources.”

“Either tell me what you are or kill me,” Laura challenged, tired of the interaction already. She was being messed with or she was done being alive. A waste of time regardless. “Throw in what you want if you aren’t in the murdering mood.”

The woman considered her, took in the set jaw and the apparent youth on her face. “I need blood.”

Laura blinked.

“From a willing source who I won’t hurt all that much and I can totally patch them up after,” the woman rambled, seemingly unaware that Laura’s fear drained from her body word by word. “Zombies are disgusting and they are not nutritious and I need something fresh because I am losing my damn mind.”

“Like, to eat?” Laura let her curiosity get the better of her, waving her people off without looking back at them.

“More drink, though it does go real well with a nice marinade on some super rare steaks,” the woman continued to ramble. “My wif-part-Carmilla, my Carmilla didn’t want to buy quite so much land but likes the nice cows we have because of the land.”

“You should come in.”


	8. Distant

Carmilla went quiet sometimes. This was a fact of life for her two partners and they generally knew to leave her to it. She’d talk about it if she felt it was necessary.

Three weeks was straining Laura’s patience and Danny’s restraint. Twenty-one days of mumbled greeting, barely there affection, and disappearances weighed heavy upon them.

“Before or after noon today?” Laura began their breakfast with gambling. The very best kind of breakfast activity. “Dealing with the gutters on the line?”

“The garage roof can hold your weight,” Danny argued around her cereal. Laura stopped messing with her own particular bacon-eating routine to meet Danny’s incredulity.

“You barely need a ladder,” she hissed back. “Before or after?”

“Before.”

They both froze, staring at each other as if not looking the vampire in the eyes would make her unable to see or hear them.

“You both know you can ask, correct?”

Danny was suddenly fascinated by her soggy cereal so Laura was left to stutter and stumble over her words.

“You’re taking time,” she tried, “we can wait until you’re okay to talk or, well.”

Laura trailed off.

“Bad enough to need outside help,” Danny finished for her, finding what little courage she had in the morning. “Can we help in any way?”

Carmilla stayed at the bottom of the staircase with one hand on the railing and the other braced against the wall, like she wasn’t sure she could support herself without help. Laura noticed it first and was around the breakfast bar and slipping an arm around Carmilla’s waist before Danny was done with the dregs of her breakfast.

“Did we put anything into storage when we moved in?”

The question unsettled Laura, she was expecting something more dramatic than ‘I have lost my favourite jacket’. Carmilla saved her from answering by leaning heavily into her side.

“A couple of boxes, nothing vital,” Danny supplied, taking over from Laura in the general breakfast making duties. Carmilla liked her blood cold in the morning and that required a blender.

“Can we go check it?” Carmilla’s uncharacteristic hesitance and softness made them both drop everything they were planning to do for the day.

Danny rifled through their newly stocked cupboards for Carmilla’s travel mug while Laura went through her impressive set of keys to find the one for the storage locker. They needed to go through it for stuff they now had wall space and shelving to display. The boxes had pictures and awards they wanted to decorate their home with.

The drive, with a short argument about which car to take, was mercifully short and the storage units were deserted at seven in the morning. Strangely.

Laura opened the rolling door and Carmilla was a burst of energy.

The boxes were all laid out in a haphazard line across the small room with their contents spilling out. It went from Danny’s neat and orderly to Carmilla’s messy and chaotic. It took about ten seconds.

Carmilla tripped over her own feet in her haste to back away from the thoroughly checked boxes. Danny leapt forward to catch her before she could fall.

“It’s not here,” she choked out, on the edge of hyperventilation. “Why isn’t it here?”

Danny held her loosely, sharing a confused glance with Laura. By a quick round of silent conversation, Danny was nominated to ask.

“What’s missing?” Danny questioned gently, making sure Carmilla wasn’t about to go into a full blown panic attack. “We brought everything we didn’t agree could be tossed.”

“My sketchbook, the one I hid from Mother,” she managed before turning in Danny’s arms seeking further comfort.

Laura stepped forward and placed a soothing hand on Carmilla’s back, conveying to Danny silently that she could handle it.

“It’s in the safe, so it doesn’t burn if, or let’s be honest here when, the house goes up in flames,” she said slowly. “Right next to my baby pictures with my mother and Danny’s biological avoidance of sentimentality.”

“Fine, I’ll clear the gutters,” Danny seized upon the opportunity for levity. “Want to leave her here to the endless organising? We can go right now and pick her up for dinner.”

Carmilla chuckled and considered the proposal.

“Pack it all up, we’re moved in,” she eventually decided. Laura set to work while Danny continued to hold Carmilla close.

“What’s in it?” Danny whispered, leaving plenty of room for Carmilla to pretend she hadn’t heard the question.

It took a moment for an answer to come.

“I drew Ell once,” was all the explanation needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am running out of the low-hanging fruit. God help me.


	9. Sad

Spending time on her father’s ship was the best fun Laura had in her thus far short life.

A private merchant running his ship through an experienced crew and a quartermaster who could actually do the running of the ship, her father died a happy, if not especially healthy man.

Succumbing to a wound was one of the more dignified deaths to be had on a long journey such as theirs. Their navigator decided he didn’t like the lemons nor the oranges, nor the necessary limes perpetually carried aboard and Laura decided she would never allow scurvy to twist her body and innards like the poor man.

The wound was caused by the woman, the pirate, the darkness that still invaded Laura’s every sleeping moment.

Seven good and sturdy men besides her father died in the attack. They tried to outrun the pirates and failed. The fight was quick and almost bloodless.

Almost.

The quartermaster took down thirteen of the pirates before the opposing captain made for Laura. It was a miracle that she wasn’t killed after so many dead bodies belonged to her.

“Captain?”

Laura took a moment to figure out that Danny was talking to her and not her father. The quartermaster had a cut running down her neck and disappearing below her shirt to her shoulders. One day, Laura would have to ask her about it. Wasn’t a normal wound and fascinated Laura to no end.

“We’ve sighted the island base,” Danny reported dutifully. One of the young men looking for experience on board a ship could have delivered the message so Laura chose to believe the quartermaster was here to see her.

“Did we make the right choice?”

Danny considered the question while Laura dashed around her cabin in search of her boots. The small room was nothing like the captain’s cabin, Laura had insisted their wounded be put in the bigger space. It did more for morale than her decision to keep the crew alive rather than be put to death.

“We made the only choice,” her quartermaster eventually answered, her foot tapping against Laura’s missing boot next to her door. “Any man that wants to argue knows his options.”

The island base they’d been directed to did indeed lay dead ahead. The base was a leftover relic from an empire long dead that Laura didn’t care one bit about. There the faster, lighter, more manoeuvrable pirate ship would be waiting in the stone fortress her masters held against the civilised world.

“We’ll arrive by sunset, and become official subjects tomorrow, I imagine,” Danny continued to perform duties well below her station, standing by Laura’s side when she had better things to be doing. “They did trust their own captain alone with us.”

“All that implies is that their threats to hunt us down could not be any more real if that’s a risk they’re willing to take.”

“She’ll be joining us, watching like a hawk,” replied Danny just as the woman herself appeared. “Good morning, captain.”

“Morning, asshole,” Laura added. Danny sighed while the pirate shrugged off the insult with her dark sad eyes scanning them both for a threat. Laura figured early that this woman had bigger masters and the roguish lifestyles didn’t make her free. “Kill anyone’s parents last night?”

The captain smiled softly, her hands going behind her back and a speculative stare going out across the deck. Laura knew she would have to learn her name, but that was not a priority when compared with her current pain surrounding her father being ripped from her.

“I wanted to end your cook for the attempted poisoning but that’s to be expected,” her deliberately low and slow voice answered, sending a shiver down Laura’s spine. She instinctively felt Danny shift her weight and wondered when either of them would gather the courage to pursue the curiosity.

“I’ll deal with it,” Danny said while brushing by the woman. Laura supposed that’s what her quartermaster was meant to be doing even as she missed the steadiness at her shoulder.

Laura kept her attention away from the captain, suddenly alone for the first time with her.

“I don’t bite,” she drawled, so much so that Laura knew she was putting it on. The fact removed most of her threatening aura.

“Shame,” Laura taunted right back. Folding her arms as the captain froze. “Do your masters bite?”

The veneer of careful laziness disappeared instantaneously.

“They will slaughter us both if you don’t comply.”

Laura caught the hint of dissent and mutiny.

That she could work with.


	10. Rejected

Mother was going to be smug when Carmilla dragged herself through the door, defeated.

Knowing her like she did, Carmilla figured out quickly that Mother got to her date in the short time between her confirming the time and place with her dear Ell.

The tavern she decided was beneath her Mother’s gaze had nice food and that was about it. The bar was tended by a single woman and Carmilla knew she was rarely in danger of being worked off her feet. Mother found out anyway and the best Carmilla could hope for was that Ell was carted off to the local church with her supremely conservative parents.

“Stood up?”

Carmilla jumped, almost knocking over the first of many, many rum and sodas she’d be drinking before her disappointing night was over. Mother made sure all her children had more money than sense. Kept them all loyal and incapable of supporting themselves. Carmilla frowned at the woman who had startled her.

She notices the bartender giving them both a curious look but files the information away for later use. Probably for when she inevitably threw up. The person who worked here was the least likely to send her to the hospital with broken bones.

“Gay panic, not deciding against me,” Carmilla answered as best she could, her words slurring together not due to the alcohol but the fight she was losing with tears. “Downright scary parents, too.”

“Hers or yours?” The woman takes Carmilla’s silence as an invitation to sit down opposite her. Her dark blonde hair flows free and her clothing suggested young but independently successful. “Or both, both makes the wet cat frown face you have going on.”

Carmilla consciously shifted her expression to disaffected anger. “They’re not the approving sort and mine is entertained by my misery.”

A glass filled with what looked like soda and smelled like a bottle of rum slid across the table to clink against her empty one. The bartender stood over them both with her arms folded and a speculative stare locked on to Carmilla.

“That card you used is stupidly expensive to qualify for,” the bartender started, earning an adorable confused wrinkle of the blonde’s nose.

Carmilla sighed and downed the offered drink without stopping until it was gone. “All the better to develop a drug habit with. Prescription meds only, of course.”

“Of course.” The bartender glared at the woman. “Shut up Danny.”

“Laura-”

“You said you needed help,” Laura cut her off with zero tolerance for argument dripping from the words. Carmilla lost what control she had regained of her face and let the confusion wash over her body. There wasn’t a point in fighting it.

There was a silent exchange of conversation.

“Daring rescue of the maiden fair before you have to open tomorrow?” Larua tried, much less confident of herself. “Do you know where your girl lives?”

Carmilla was busy wondering why her throat was on fire. Ell would hate her for separating girl from beloved parents. It would be kidnapping to free her, Ell wouldn’t view it as freedom.

“She’s not mine,” was the answer she distilled her defeat into. “Just taken with the idea of rebellion, too afraid to consider taking me as anything more than a childish detour from her demanded path in life.”

The bartender huffed and pulled a chair over to sit backwards on, folding her arms on the back and setting her head to rest on them. “You are just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”

“You have me for that, Danny, and she clearly wants to run,” Laura argued brightly.

“She can hear you,” Carmilla deadpanned. “Mother is waiting at home for me to drag my sorry ass back from this, can’t leave her alone for too long. She’ll take it personally that I didn’t run straight home to cry in her arms.”

“At least mine just died,” Laura mumbled, continuing louder, “the offer is open either way.”

Danny buried her head in her arms and groaned. “You didn’t offer her anything, idiot girl.”

“Danny needs someone who can do numbers to keep track of her books and there’s totally an extra bedroom in the apartment above this terrible dive of a place,” Laura rushed out, smirking at the end.

“Please just say no now before she ends up kidnapping you instead of the girl,” Danny pleaded, big blue eyes betraying an interest in Carmilla saying yes.

“This is the weirdest way anyone has ever been hit on, an achievement for you both.”


	11. Weak

Laura Hollis didn’t hate exercise.

No. Really. Stop laughing.

Running bored her to tears. Lifting weights left her with a deep sense of inadequacy due to how little weight she could manage. Team sports brought out the worst in her. Couldn’t get the hang of riding a bike.

Her reasons varied in validity, from points of pride to the threat of physical harm via inability to balance herself properly.

Danny suggested a martial art of some kind. That led to Laura accidentally permanently destroying a guy’s right eyeball. Carmilla jokingly suggesting vampirism and was summarily ignored.

Exercise hated her.

Danny slipped off their local gym’s salmon ladder when Laura showed up to drive her home. Carmilla did push-ups on occasion to annoy Danny and as soon as Laura dragged herself out of bed on one of their sexual tension mornings, Carmilla slipped on carpet somehow and broke their coffee table.

A curse of some sort. Natural conclusion to reach when one’s girlfriend is a vampire and that’s a thing that’s possible in her reality.

Three scientific tests with all of her jewellery on the line later and Danny had a broken arm, they needed a new bedroom door, and Laura had gained weight in her increasingly more static life.

“We buy her an exercise bike,” suggested Danny, lying in front of their couch in the vacated space left by the coffee table. Laura was off visiting her father for the weekend so Danny was braving their home to do her daily sit-ups. Carmilla idly kept an outstretched foot pinning both of Danny’s down securely while flipping through a local tattoo artist’s portfolio.

“Then a sudden onset of electrocution awaits you the first time she tries to use it,” Carmilla dismissed the idea with her usual quiet concern for Danny’s safety. “Perhaps a non-contact style like tai chi or we brave the yoga argument again.”

Danny froze midway up in her rep, “you feel free to have the yoga argument, I’ll wait here.”

Carmilla shuddered and noted a particularly nice wing design in the portfolio. “Basic bodyweight stuff?”

Danny shook her head. “Tried that, she nearly broke her nose trying to do this.”

They kept going in silence expect for Danny’s quiet counting every ten reps. It continued this for another fifty or so before Danny lay herself flat on the ground and frowned.

“She’s not sick or anything, her last full check over was fine,” Danny announced. “If it’s not a concern for her, then does it bother us?”

Carmilla was silent for a little too long for Danny’s liking.

“Carmilla?”

The portfolio landed on the other end of the couch while she settled herself next to Danny’s tired body. Carmilla intertwined their hands while Danny reached for her water bottle.

“I know what an inactive thirty year old who spends all their time at a desk looks like,” Carmilla began the defence for her hesitance, “two of them did some cardio then I happened.”

“Inactive isn’t the right word and you know it,” Danny corrected softly, poking Carmilla in the stomach when she looked like she was going to argue. “Are you worried my magnificence is going to distract you or?”

Carmilla shoved her, hard. “Laura’s arms are better than yours and you damn well know it.”

Keys bashed against their door suddenly.

They were on their feet and ready to kill whoever was on the other side of the door in an instant. Carmilla held up a hand to stay Danny’s coiled body when she heard the familiar heartbeat and that frustrated grunt Laura made when her keys didn’t cooperate.

“Wait, how?”

Laura swung the door open with great force while Danny stayed rooted to the floor as she considered Carmilla’s declaration.

“How what?” Laura got out before Carmilla was wrapped around her like she’d been gone for a month instead of two days.

Now that Danny was looking for it, the definition in Laura’s biceps was subtle but there, and there much more prominently than her own arms.

“Carmilla?”

The vampire mumbled something into Laura’s neck that only confused the woman further. “’Reference books’? What do you two talk about while I’m not here?”

Danny’s hands went to her hips and Laura felt like she was being examined and would be taken apart and put back together later.

“Bullshit,” she concluded. Carmilla nipped Laura’s pulse point and turned to glare at Danny.

“They’re fucking heavy and she re-shelves out bookcases monthly. All arm work.”

Laura would tell them about her gardening plans later. Clearly they’d both gone insane.


	12. Threatened

Laura’s unfailing optimism had its place in their lives. It was not at home when a mugging went terribly, fatally wrong for the mugger.

What was a gun to a vampire?

Laura’s functioning stopped when the man hit the ground. Danny stood outwardly frozen behind her with a hand on Laura’s lower back with intent to get between her and the bullets. Carmilla was complaining about being starving then the man stepped out of an alcove with his shining gun flashing in Laura’s face.

She wasn’t starving anymore and Laura and Danny were safe from the gun.

Laura’s mind stopped ticking, Danny’s went into overdrive.

Carmilla stood in a haze of blood and violence, non-responsive.

“Rip him apart,” Danny broke the silence.

Carmilla whirled around, staring at Danny as if she’d just suggested Carmilla jump high enough to land on the moon. Laura remained paralysed.

Danny took a deep breath, like she was draining the man’s life in from the air around them. “Rip him apart more and we’ll say it was animals.”

“Danny-” Carmilla tried, recovering from the blind urge to protect.

“No, Carmilla,” Danny bit, “no one is going to believe that any of us did that, even if you straight up confessed.”

Laura blinked while keeping her eyes unseeing on the body before them on the ground with a shocking lack of blood surrounding it.

“I’m not an animal, Danny,” Carmilla growled, not unlike a large cat.

Laura blinked again, the notion that her girlfriends’ only used their given names when they were fighting slipped into her gridlocked mind. Followed by the realisation that she would love it if they did it more often. Their names sounded heart shatteringly good coming from each other and Laura found herself aurally addicted.

“Yes, you are. There’s a thousand conspiracy theorists who would love evidence of a big cat killing locally.”

The next drop of progress in Laura’s mind was that it was kind of silly that her girlfriend was a cat. Followed quickly by a startling observation that there was a gun and a man who would have killed her if Carmilla wasn’t there to kill him first. His finger was on the trigger, now frozen there in death.

“Someone had to see something,” Carmilla fought back weakly, the weight of her reflexive urge to keep her humans safe landed squarely on her shoulders. “What are we going to say? ‘A man tried to rob us and then a big animal saved our lives’.”

Laura should say something. She knew that. They would argue in circles about anything important until Danny died of old age. It was a pillar that made their relationship stronger, two people having a problem that would make a relationship crumble and the third being scary good at turning the problem into a strength.

“What would you do if I got to him first and he broke his skull on the sidewalk?” Danny challenged Carmilla’s lack of concern for getting away with what would look like self-defence if it wasn’t for the vampiric nature of his wounds.

Laura saw the way to end the argument. It was what she brought to their stability. Danny provided a commitment to ideals that Carmilla didn’t care to develop and Laura couldn’t see clearly when things started getting rough. Carmilla was, to the Dean’s eternal shame, extremely emotionally sensitive. Like a nerve exposed to heat and pain that gradually guided their restraint from taking things to far.

Like killing a guy.

“We call the police, say we didn’t notice he was bleeding. Cooperate,” whispered Laura, getting their attention before the argument turned into ideals versus emotions. Again. “No, we don’t say anything. We’re shell-shocked and go along with whatever they decide to take from the situation.”

Danny and Carmilla were fully focused on her now, dead body forgotten as Laura took charge.

“Carm?”

Danny pulled out her phone and walked away from them to deal with the emergency call. She was the only one who liked taking on the thing anyway.

Carmilla looked like a spy awaiting orders from a dead drop instead of a scared little girl who did something she knew was wrong.

“Take out his throat and disappear. Take the gun with you.”

Carmilla swallowed heavily, anxiety stopping her from following directions. What if the man had friends nearby?

“Hide you bite marks. Throw it in a random dumpster. We’ve got this,” Laura reassured her with simpler and more specific instructions.

Dealing with accidental killings was Laura’s domain.

At least, it was now.


	13. Let Down

Of all things, Laura was not expecting nervousness to be the reason Danny and Carmilla didn’t work together romantically.

They were perfectly aloof and arrogant and utterly experienced and charming with her. Laura didn’t understand how Carmilla came away from their first date nervous for their second. Laura decided to investigate when Carmilla refused to share any details from their super casual, super retro high school, super cheesy date at a diner. A 1950’s aesthetic diner.

Because Laura’s girlfriends were bigger nerds than her.

Somehow.

A second perspective was required and Laura barely restrained herself from going undercover to the diner to question the staff and regulars for information.

Asking Danny was tragically easier.

The Summer Society either loved Laura or hated her. Danny couldn’t keep her mood a secret around them so any problem Laura and Danny were having was the business of the entire sorority. They took Danny’s side, obviously.

Today was a bad day. Excellent.

“Please let me in, this only gets better if you let me in,” Laura recited her general argument for when the girls got annoyed with her. They weren’t having kids. Ever.

The Summer tried to hold her ground, but crumbled just like they always did when faced with Laura. She refused to think of herself as the discipline parent, but she went to ground one of them the previous week and it was unsettling to know that they totally accepted her non-existent authority.

“Thank you, go clean your damn room.” Laura sometimes, rare times, liked to mess with them. The rooms were always a mess and they always thought she could read their minds.

Danny was sitting on her bed with her knees drawn to her chest and a depressingly cynical paperback in her hands. Laura wished she could apply ice cream like she could with her high school exes. Danny hated that much sugar and Carmilla only liked the weird and expensive flavours that should not be in ice cream form.

“What the fuck happened last night?”

The Summer blockade did not leave her in the best mood.

“Your girlfriend didn’t show,” Danny answered quietly, like she was on the verge of crying. “I had a great time, be sure to thank her for me.”

Was nothing simple and straightforward in her life?

“She said you were acting weird all night which makes a whole lot more sense now,” Laura thought out loud. Danny’s head snapped up from her book with a look of such concern and worry that Laura knew her idiots would be fine. “Do you have an equally hot, significantly more interested in milkshakes twin you’re hiding from me somewhere?”

“What?”

Laura wished Danny messaged her the night before. Perhaps she wouldn’t look quite so tired and sound so exhausted.

“Carmilla got back earlier than expected and claimed you were unsettlingly off by just a enough to set her nerves on edge,” Laura explained, already formulating a plan of attack to deal with the impostor.

“’Nerves on edge’?”

“Her words, not mine.” Because the wording was important right now. “Where were you last night, if not out with Carmilla?”

Danny concentrated visibly. Her confusion made Laura’s heart hurt. “I left the house and then,” she stopped, “I don’t know.”

The sadness was gone immediately, replaced with an unbridled fury at not only her own lost time, but at the fact that it hurt Carmilla too. Danny was righteous like that.

Danny got to her feet and rushed to her mirror. She swept her hair to one side and inspected the right side of her neck with a furious glare.

“What are you doing?” Laura had to ask when Danny continued to inspect her own neck like she was looking for hickeys and her parents didn’t know she was dating.

“I thought I’d slept weird or something,” Danny began, “my neck has been hurting all morning and now I know why.”

Laura was at her side when Danny found what she was looking for. There was a tiny red mark surrounded by some raised skin next to her lowest neck bone. “Are you okay now?”

A million other things that could go along with a drugging raced through Laura’s mind.

“I think so, I feel the same as yesterday,” Danny reassured her quickly. “Significantly more homicidal, but otherwise the same.”

“Someone’s after Carmilla,” Laura concluded from the few facts they had. “Either they did something to her too, or now they know her weakness.”

“Easily drugged humans?”

“Awkward first dates.”


	14. Humiliated

Breathing was a luxury.

Laura’s head went back under the water and the luxury was gone.

They’d been at it for minutes. It felt like hours.

Her jailers thought they were making progress. They were not.

Nothing would make her break. Carmilla was depending on her to stay alive. Danny wouldn’t be able to stop the militia on its way to kill Carmilla. If they got a vampiric weaknesses out of Laura, they would both be dead.

They let her keep the rings on each of her third fingers, her lifelines. Laura convinced herself that they were only going to take them when they’d tried everything else first. Laura was humbled enough to admit that it would most likely work, she would crack. Her strength would disappear.

Being locked in a cage with no clue if it was night or day, with eyes following her every moment of every day. If she’d been in here more than a full day. Admitting that she had a breaking point was the result of a lock of brilliant red hair being slid to her on the gruel they served for a meal.

She knew it wasn’t Danny’s. But her heart lurched and the despair set in anyway. Proving that they could take them away from her permanently was enough for Laura. All her strength slid away, her shoulders slumped and her defiance turned to defeat.

“Vampires don’t exist,” Laura used one of her brief air breaks to spit around the water she couldn’t keep out. They smashed her cheek against the bottom of their metal bucket, knocking what little air she managed to get out of her lungs and invited the water to rush in.

They could have captured Danny. Or Carmilla.

The thought occurred to her that she was being used as a show. As leverage.

They would both break immediately to keep her from being hurt. Laura knew damn well that they had had that conversation behind her back. They would have decided that they were disposable and Laura was somehow more worthy of life.

Apparently not.

The heavy-handed gentleman who serves as jailer grasped her hair yanked back hard enough to rip a clump free. Laura’s head flew from the water. The pulling kept going. Laura slammed into the back wall of the plain grey room, knocking the careful concentration on resistance Laura had build clear from her body.

If she was an incentive for Carmilla to offer herself for the slaughter or Danny to choose Laura’s life over Carmilla’s, these people would have won days ago.

Laura scrambled for presence of mind. Finding the quiet moment in between the horror kept her sane all this time.

“Where is she!”

Hallucinating wasn’t an option right now, Laura told her stupid brain. The walls vibrated with the force of the fake demand, now her body was betraying her as well.

The brute picked her up by her hair. Laura didn’t have the energy left to go with his will, there went more hair. The militia hadn’t killed anyone, yet. It was a cold comfort.

Laura clenched her hands into tight fists. The ice cold metals of her two rings reminding her why she was alive. The walls rumbled again, drawing her attention as a blow landed in her gut. Then another.

Laura lost count after that. It was more than five. With some kicks thrown in.

They were careful not to bring weapons near her, like she was a threat to them. At first, Laura was flattered that they thought so much of her. Now, it boiled down to a slow death, a painful one.

The man leapt away from her an eternity later. Laura sunk to the floor in a boneless heap.

The loudest noise in history slammed into her ears no less than eleven times. The ringing made it so she could barely hear whatever hallucination her brain was conjuring now the sharp, new pain had stopped.

“I think you got him.”

A metallic click, another. Then eleven more loudest noises ever.

“Danny! Stop!”

You don’t try to break good people, Laura thought while the world went black. Carmilla didn’t think much of a human life she didn’t care about. Quick, relatively dignified death. Danny would do what Laura’s jailer did if the people she cared about were threatened.

Laura felt super threatened.

“He’s still twitching.”

“That’s what happens when meat sacks get shot a lot!”

A moment of silent argument.

Click, again. More bangs. Some shouting.

Laura slipped into the darkness.


	15. Insecure

The firebombs weren’t necessary.

Danny knew she could hang back behind the tower and take shots at the shining knights and daring princes that came to call on her charge.

Throwing the distilled alcohol trapped in the carefully crafted bottles was more for her own amusement than anything practical. The men would come less frequently in the months after she used them, screaming bloody murder at the ‘dragon’ protecting the wicked Queen’s favourite daughter.

When it got boring, she set traps and left the captured heroes to the animals of the woods.

Danny job was to care for Carmilla, not to personally confirm the suitors died screaming. Things added in the postscript of her contract with the Queen did not count towards the actual day to day job of feeding and protecting the girl.

The garden was small and her room at the base of the tower was modest. The Princess upstairs ventured down for meals and company when her books and art supplies failed to entertain her. Carmilla watched her with a careful interest, barely speaking but always aware and alert to Danny’s every movement.

Danny knew exactly why her charge stared when she thought Danny wasn’t looking. Why she could feel eyes on her when she went out to hunt for men or food, when she needed to get to cutting the firewood. Danny did her best to encourage it while maintaining plausible deniability if the Queen were to come after her head.

It was during one of her firewood mornings that the woman showed up.

Danny had a firebomb ready to fly and her crossbow sitting within her reach. Her guard was rarely down when it came to her duties.

The woman had no armour on, no weapons, and she was either the luckiest person alive or the most careful and observant to get through all of Danny’s traps.

Danny threw her axe mid-swing and got down on one knee as she raised the crossbow. The woman squeaked and both of her hands shot skyward in surrender. Danny took careful aim anyway.

“I’m not armed and she does not like it when people threaten me,” the woman proclaimed. Danny placed her finger on the trigger and started to squeeze until the ‘she’ appeared from behind the tiny form of the woman.

“Is that a-?” Danny couldn’t finish her question, too shocked by the winged creature coming to hiss and snarl in front of the invader. “What?”

“The men in the village said there was a dragon guarding the Princess,” the woman explained, arms frozen in the air in fear despite the dragon she’d brought with her. Danny was struck speechless.

Carmilla’s door whined as she opened it. Excellent, Danny thought, wondering how to protect her charge from a dragon.

“She’s a baby and I don’t know how to raise her,” the woman pleaded, actively putting herself between Danny and the dragon.

“There’s no dragon,” said Danny without hearing herself say it. “Just me.”

The woman looked like she was about to cry. “Don’t suppose you know how to raise a dragon?”

“I have a book or two on the subject.”

The dragon flapped excitedly around Danny and away from the woman. Something in Carmilla’s voice must have attracted the dragon’s attention. Maybe it was the same undertone that sent a bolt of lightning down Danny’s spine.

“Mother suggested a well-rounded education during my period of forced chastity,” Carmilla explained.

“You are here for your safety, Princess,” Danny automatically argued.

Carmilla displayed a rare moment of softness as the dragon nuzzled into her chest. “The safety of my supposed virtue, she means.”

“Supposed?”

Danny glared at the woman, not acknowledging the unearned jealously coursing through her veins, and gestured for her to back off with the crossbow.

Carmilla laughed, Danny faltered again.

“Does she have a name, traveller?”

The woman faltered as well, Danny wanted to shoot her. “No, I wouldn’t know what to call a dragon.”

Carmilla’s laugh sent the woman’s hands to her sides and Danny’s crossbow held limp and aiming directly at the very threatening ground. The Queen was said to have magical powers over those closest to her. Danny understood why she and her charge rarely spoke.

“I’m sure we can think of something. Danny?”

Danny cleared her throat. “Yes, Princess?”

“We have enough for…?”

“Laura.”

“For Laura and her dragon child to stay with us for a few days, correct?”

Yes, Princess. Of course, Princess. Want me to invade your mother’s castle for you, Princess?

Danny couldn’t find it within herself to say no.


	16. Chapter 16

The dragon flew in lazy circles around the Princess’ room at the top of the tower, unaware that she was being watched by the two women she considered ‘Less Fantastic Parents’.

Neither Danny nor Laura knew the dragon thought so highly of them. All they knew was that their closest friends had left them for each other.

Laura wanted her dragon back and Danny missed the peaceful nights with Carmilla.

“We don’t have to be here anymore. They don’t need us.”

Danny wanted to roll her eyes at the over-dramatic tone this tiny woman decided was a great idea to use. “The Princess has better protection than I could every hope to provide and your little dragon friend has a mother that she seems to love. They don’t strike me as capable of taking care of themselves. For example, food and how we’re providing it.”

Laura heard the telltale snap of one of her traps being tripped. “If I go get it, can you skin it for me?”

Danny shrugged, and resumed tending to the small garden she’d set up after the umpteenth complaining about too much meat from Carmilla. “Fine, but you’re going for water later.”

Laura frowned and considered her options. The dragon swooped low and snorted smoke at them both. The hunter decided that a visit to the well was worth not being here for the dragon to ignore her again.

Carmilla’s mood was sky high.

This creature bonded to her immediately, a companion that wasn’t charmed or employed to like her. Danny could swear up and down that she was genuinely her friend even with their state of affairs taken into account, Carmilla could only be sure if she asked right.

If she asked with force.

Asking the baby dragon to make her way down to her other caretakers was simple and she knew the creature did it because she wanted to, not because Carmilla left no room for free will.

Following the dragon down the tower, she stopped in the entryway to observe this woman Mother’s secretary decided was loyal enough to care for her only child.

Carmilla thought the secretary was drunk at the time and that Danny was loyal to Carmilla herself and not her Mother. No one willingly removed themselves from civilisation so completely if they didn’t think the reason was worth it.

“Good morning,” she called from the doorway. Danny flinched, unaware. Carmilla’s body coiled in concern, her protector was always aware of her. Danny made a point of it. “Where’s our new friend?”

Danny set down her bucket of weeds, standing to meet her Princess’ question. Her blue eyes drifted to the dragon still making low circles around the bottom of the tower.

“Fetching tonight’s dinner.”

The answer was practical. Curt. Would be at home in the military. For all Carmilla knew, Danny was military.

It was like they were back to the start of their odd little relationship. Short, purely functional conversations with no room for making friends.

“Have I done something?” Carmilla knew her voice was small and scared. She felt like an insecure child, begging for attention. Again.

The dragon landed between them when Danny moved closer. Like she was a threat.

They watched in silence as the dragon waddled over to Danny, slipping behind her legs and nudging the woman toward her new mother. The silly thing yapped and snapped at insects in the air as Danny gave in to the pressure.

Carmilla giggled. Danny froze. The dragon went off in search of Laura, believing her to be gone forever since she wasn’t in her line of sight nor her earshot.

“Princess, I was ordered to care for you until I felt you capable. Whatever that means,” Danny said. “With her on your side, I believe that time to be coming soon.”

Carmilla’s heart sank. “The dragon doesn’t keep me warm at night.”

Yes, she knew how it sounded. No, she wasn’t sleeping with her protector.

“I will show you how to cut the damn firewood tomorrow morning.”

Carmilla rolled her eyes, because Mother thought an idiot would suffice potentially for the rest of Carmilla’s life. “Yes, that’s what I meant.”

“Good, great talk,” Danny turned to resume her work. Carmilla resisted the urge to whine, she refused to stereotype herself. The dragon came flying out of the woods like a shot, swinging around until she could barrel into Danny’s chest mid-retreat. The woman stumbled back.

“She thinks we have more to talk about, dearest.”


	17. Chapter 17

The amulet arrived in the mail.

Laura opened the letter, addressed only to ‘The Occupant’. It wasn’t a package, just an unusually heavy plain white envelope. It was probably some kind of local government communication, they came in blank, cookie-cutter envelopes with no unique markings.

Anyone would have opened it, she would go on to defend herself days later.

Laura opened the envelope and pulled out the yellowed sheet of paper folded around a wafer thin disc of what looked like platinum to Laura. Black scorch marks done in a language Laura didn’t understand lay in concentric circles on both sides of the shining disc.

That was the last thing she remembered.

Six weeks later, Laura returned to herself with Carmilla’s forearm pressing down on her throat and Danny’s blood in her hair.

It was like waking up after a seventeen hour nap. Disorienting and foggy.

“Good morning, Cupcake,” said Carmilla, breathing heavily. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Get the fucking thing off her,” Danny shouts from far away. In reality she’s in the same room as Laura and Carmilla.

Carmilla’s pressure doesn’t ease off for a moment.

“What?” Laura groaned, her eyes barely working properly. “Carm?”

Carmilla increases her downward force so Laura couldn’t speak again if she wanted to.

“Oh no you don’t,” she hissed. “You are going to stay still and shut up until we get that thing off of you.”

Laura wanted to struggle. Carmilla’s weight and strength stopped her rather than any self control she might have otherwise had.

“Ripping it off didn’t work,” Danny says when Carmilla uses her free hand to tug on the metal chain digging into Laura’s skin. Laura noted that Danny sounded a whole lot closer and that she could now see the world much clearer than before.

“She’s going to go under again soon and I can’t hold her much longer if she starts to fight me,” Carmilla retorted through her teeth. A second hand joins the fight against the chain, their combined strength serving to snap the metal.

Laura screamed.

The white hot pain ripped through her muscles like she’d run a marathon after completing arm and leg day simultaneously for six days straight.

Carmilla’s weight left her in a gust of air. “I think she’s back.”

The pain kept Laura too busy to shout that of course she was back. To demand to know where she supposedly went.

“I’ll go get the shots,” Danny said quietly.

Why she knew the blood in her hair was Danny’s, Laura had no clue. The sense was there and she wasn’t one to deny her instincts.

“What?” Laura choked out again, this time registering as an actual question on Carmilla’s face.

“You single-handedly levelled the church in the village and nearly killed anyone who tried to stop you,” Carmilla explained carefully, her voice low and monotonous. Laura trusted her instincts again and knew Carmilla was waiting for her to turn back into someone who needed restraining.

“Why?”

Carmilla held up the disc so it shone in the light of day. Laura lunged at it despite the blinding pain shooting through her body.

Carmilla caught her with one arm, holding the other far away from Laura’s reach. She used every drop of vampire strength to throw the amulet as far away from Laura as she could.

“Because you really, really want to do what that thing wants,” said Carmilla.

Laura noticed that they were next to the postal office in town. In a crater. Judging by the view she had, the church was no longer there. “Oh my gosh.”

“Before you panic, Danny’s fine,” she explained. “You caught her in the wrong place with your nails.”

“I made the church go away?” Laura continued to take stock of her own body. The pain was mostly muscular. The rest was broken and fractured bones. “By hand?”

“And beat the crap out of anyone who tried to stop you,” Danny announced, dropping back into the crater with a first-aid bag slung over her shoulder.

“We decided to let you go,” Carmilla continued. “The church needed a full renovation. We needed to know where the amulet came from.”

“It came in the mail,” Laura answered the not question. “So pretty.”

Carmilla and Danny turned as one to the postal office.

“No way,” Carmilla said quickly.

“There’s an ancient Scandinavian monster thing under there,” Danny concluded, disgustingly excited at the idea of a monster to punch.

“I’m strong enough to break a building by hand?”


	18. Chapter 18

The idea behind any drinking game is to get the biggest idiot drunk first while keeping everyone else suitably inebriated for the free social atmosphere to develop.

Laura knew that Brent was the idiot of her toughest and smallest journalism class. Therefore, he was set to lose the game and lose it hard.

Somehow, the rest of her class hadn’t caught the message properly. They decided collectively on a game of pure chance rather than one with endless rules and stipulations designed to punish the weak and end the needlessly smug.

That was how Laura’s friends back home did it.

Danny had insisted more than once that Laura experienced high school significantly more intensely than Danny herself had.

A shuffled deck of cards didn’t care if Brent was an idiot or if Marta was only a fun drunk after most people blacked out. Laura wanted to humph and grumble petulantly but decided that would only label herself as the one deserving of the steadily filling massive stein.

The current mixture of pours from everyone’s drink of choice on bad draws was a deep purple. Laura’s own tequila made up roughly half of the liquid. That was why it wasn’t jet black.

Brent was the only person at the table who still had the original drink they started with.

Laura had gone through most of the bottle of tequila she brought with her. It was half-empty when they started but the strength of it was working its magic just fine.

“Hollis, you’re up,” one of the assholes who probably would be able to remember this in the morning chirped much too loudly. They brandished the half-done deck of cards at her and Laura drew much more confidently than she felt inside.

The ‘I’m going to need help getting home’ text to Danny an hour ago was a wise investment.

Laura knew which card it was before she turned it over.

The assembled students were drinking all manner of alcohol on this particular nighttime gathering. Laura watched three of them take conservative pulls from their beers, two wine glasses filled with four different kinds of wine, seven sugar and vodka explosions in a bottle, her own tequila, and the six bearded young men with some obscure types of whiskey they had brought specifically to lord over their classmates.

Brent was drinking the cheapest light beer the store sold. Laura wanted to slit his throat with her stupid king of spades.

Quickly texting Danny to inform her that getting home was about to become urgent, Laura tossed the card on the table face up and stared down her opponent for the evening.

The stein was etched with some ancient language that no doubt wished the victim a healthy liver transplant in the future. The deep purple mix looked like it would taste like grape.

Three separate people pushed the glass toward her, Laura noted their faces and tried to commit them to memory.

“Hope the girlfriends don’t seek revenge,” one of them snickered to the person next to them. “We’re done for if ginger finds out.”

Danny was surprisingly chill about people being bastards to Laura directly and about their relationship directly. Carmilla was more old-fashioned, duel at high noon over her honour when the mood struck her.

Laura hoped Danny came alone. This would put Carmilla so far into the mood they might have to flee the country from multiple homicide cases.

“They fully support my poor life choices, Craig,” Laura replied with an overly pleasant smile. The stein was hard to lift. Laura briefly considered joining Danny in her arm day routine, then decided that she wasn’t going to remember any of this. The last thing she saw before starting the full three minutes of pure hell was Danny replying that Carmilla was asleep and she was leaving.

When Danny arrived ten minutes later, Laura was glaring at the empty stein like it had personally killed Mufasa and was coming for every single dog in every single movie ever next.

The other journalism students were not exactly coherent and Danny had to stare down two of the ‘nice guy’ looking dudes before they required a beat down.

“While I’m here, does anyone else need a ride home?”

Laura noticed Danny had arrived. “They’re all good. Home now please,” she said slowly and deliberately.

Danny wondered how much trouble she would be in for carrying Laura to the car in view of other people.

Laura stumbling decided for her.

“Did you drink the entire liquor store?”


	19. Chapter 19

“Papa!”

Sundays were the only day Danny Lawrence could sleep in. She worked a regular full-time week and played soccer with a local team on Saturday mornings. Sunday was her time and the only serious time she got to spend with Laura and Carmilla.

Laura’s father arriving at dawn on a Sunday was her own personal nightmare.

Carmilla groaned next to her and rolled over to cuddle into Danny’s body. Danny obliged her because the bed was warm and Laura would not dare wake them before they were ready. Their relationship could only handle so much and sleep deprivation would be a leading cause if they ever broke apart.

“We have to get up,” Danny mumbled into Carmilla’s mess of hair. “They’re only going to have daddy-daughter time for an hour at most.”

Carmilla responded by maturely burying herself further into Danny and their many blankets.

It took forty-seven minutes for Laura to throw caution into the wind. She dive-bombed them both and bounced around excitedly until they both woke up.

They were mostly polite for the rest of the day.

Laura took her father out for dinner. Carmilla shot out the door so fast that Danny found herself mildly concerned for the sound barrier. The vampire was supposedly starving and Danny was left alone.

On the only day she got with them both.

Next week, it would be better.

Next week, Carmilla managed to catch a damn cold.

Man-flu had nothing on vampire-flu.

Laura was leery of when Danny was sick. If the vampire was sick then Laura was out so fast she made Carmilla look slow.

By midday, Danny was wondering if this was some kind of gay punishment from God. Laura appeared for long enough to kiss Danny on the cheek and announce that she was going cave-diving with LaFontaine. For work. Totally.

Danny didn’t hold it against her. She couldn’t deal with non-sad emotional crying from either of them and Carmilla was out the moment someone suggested food poisoning.

The cold was fleeting and only lasted long enough to ruin Danny’s Sunday. She ‘accidentally’ fell asleep on the couch that night.

The game on the next Saturday resulted in a red card for Danny and a bloody face for the woman who decided pissing her off was a good life choice.

When they got home, Laura and Carmilla spent the entire afternoon walking on eggshells.

Danny calmed herself down once she noticed what they were doing.

They collapsed into an emotionally exhausted pile early that night.

Sunday started with a dream that had Danny damn happy that they had all day free.

She couldn’t remember any of it but knew that leaving bed was the absolute last thing she wanted to do with her day.

Then Laura’s phone rang. Repeatedly.

Carmilla disagreed with the distraction and it went crashing into their wall. Then Danny’s phone rang and something had to be wrong.

LaFontaine had no freaking clue what to do about Perry being rushed into surgery to remove her appendix before it exploded. The growl Danny let out was so close to werewolf that Carmilla raised her hands to protect herself from the bite than generally followed.

Another Sunday, another day wasted.

Perry was fine.

The fourth Sunday was the traditional monthly ‘why did we not think of the synchronisation effect before now?’ question that perpetually left someone threatening to leave the house for a week to get away from the three-part menace.

Danny embraced that as the wash it was always going to be.

By the fifth Sunday, she was expecting the day to go wrong so hard that she barely had time to consider that Laura was probably suggesting dinner out for a reason and Carmilla only broke out the leather jackets when the seduction eyes didn’t work properly.

Danny made it until the on-edge drive home until she cracked from the stress.

“If one of you say you’re pregnant when we get home, I am leaving you both,” she snapped suddenly. Startled and confused, Laura and Carmilla went silent until they were safely parked in their driveway.

“I have always wondered what you were like without sex for a month,” Carmilla drawled, as unhelpful as ever. It wasn’t super endearing at that moment.

“It has not been a month!” Danny and Carmilla sat in silence. “Oh god, did I miss the wedding?”

The silence continued for five seconds.

Then there was laughter followed by giggling sex.

Danny took Monday off.


	20. Chapter 20

In her village, Laura’s considered destined for greatness. Her father was the greatest hunter in recorded history and her mother was largely considered to be a mythological creature or a goddess of some kind.

Laura didn’t care where she came from. Absent is the only trait her mother had that Laura needed to know. It really said everything.

Killing a banshee at nine wasn’t even hard for her. The grown men and women fell to the ground with their hands clapped to their ears when the woman started screaming. Laura couldn’t even hear it.

“Give up and I won’t have to-” her tiny, squeaking voice tried to reason with the banshee while the rest of her party couldn’t hear such weakness.

The banshee ignored her and Laura raised her plain blade to catch her neck as the woman flew at her small body.

The banshee collapsed into an unmoving heap next to Laura. The rest of the warriors recovered quickly. They called her a hero and took her home to receive praise from her father and the other elders.

Ten years later and Laura wanted nothing more to do with any of them.

Mostly because her unknown mother had doomed her in absentia. A little because her father went along with it.

“I can get out of these,” she said, bored, to the burly men leading her out of the village. “You’d both be dead before the ropes hit the ground.”

An elbow connected with the back of her neck and Laura wanted to be sick. “Not so tough.”

“You need a bath,” Laura noted, selectively shutting off her sense of smell to combat the sickness. “No idea which, probably both.”

One of them tightened his grip, presuming that he could hurt her. Laura sighed and mentally ran the probabilities of getting away if she started to fight now rather than wherever she was being taken.

She had to know why. No fighting until she knew what was going on.

“That a hardened criminal you have there, gentlemen?”

Horse. Woman. Smell hidden by captors. Not good enough.

The men faltered in their false bravado. “One of the Queen’s, uh, best? Here?”

“We’re Knights, idiot,” the woman corrected, just as bored with the situation as Laura. “Why are you leading a girl through the forest?”

The men stuttered and stumbled over their words and each other while Laura got a good look at the Knight. Red hair, much taller and broader than Laura, more of a threat than both men combined.

“They’re scared of me,” Laura answered, giving up on their destination and why they thought she needed to go there. “Queen?”

The Knight almost smacked her own forehead with her gauntlet, catching herself before the blow could connect. “You’re from the assholes protected by the fairies, aren’t you?”

Laura shrugged. Not her problem, above her station. Little hunters didn’t get to know why they went after everything but the fairies. “I just work there.”

“Carmilla’s going to lose her freaking mind over you,” the Knight grumbled. She probably thought Laura’s hearing wasn’t good enough to hear her. “Let her go. By order of your Queen. Do it or I have the authority to make you both die slowly.”

“I’d do as she says,” said Laura. “On first name basis with the Queen, could kill a whole village without consequences if she wanted.”

Now the Knight was actively considering killing the men regardless of what they chose. Laura knew what she was thinking, could see it on her face.

The men actually considered fighting. Laura slipped out of her restraints and used the knife strapped to one of the men’s legs to slash across his thigh. He was bleeding beyond help even as she flipped the blade and buried it in the neck of the other man.

The Knight dismounted her horse and approached Laura slowly.

“You aren’t one of the wild children the last Queen sent into the forest to raise themselves, are you?”

Laura looked forward to investigating them. “I have a father and a theoretical mother.”

That was the wrong answer. The frustrated grunt from the Knight suggested that Laura wasn’t work the curiosity.

“The horse is going to hate you, isn’t it?”

“Most animals don’t like me all that much,” Laura answered. “I would rather not kill three people in one day if that’s an unwanted complication.”

The Knight did hit herself with the gauntlet at that.

“We’re walking back then. Come on, Metal Brain.”

“You’re the one covered in metal here, not me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts welcome and encouraged.


End file.
